In a move that broke across many of the major online poker forums this morning, PokerStars banned its players from using the database site SharkScope.com and its corresponding Heads Up Display (HUD). SharkScope now joins other collective databases like Poker Edge as not permitted on the site. The online poker room identifies 42 total programs in total that players on its felts are not allowed to operate. There had been talk of banning SharkScope in the previous year, but it appears that enforcement has become official today.
SharkScope is a poker tracking tool that has, according to its website, amassed a database of 178 million sit and go tournaments from across the major networks. A player using the website while playing on PokerStars is now in violation of the site’s Terms of Service. Punishment could include anything from a warning for a first time offender to complete banishment from the online poker room. Other programs which are banned from use by players on PokerStars include Poker Edge, Holdem Hawk, Poker Crusher, Online Holdem Inspector, TheCashDB, SpadeEye, and Sixth Sense.
SharkScope is in violation of PokerStars’ decree that “Any program that works off of a central database of player profiles or hands played is prohibited.” In addition, programs that play “without human intervention,” involve the “practice of datamining,” or “offer direct game play advice on the appropriate action to take” are also strictly against PokerStars’ Terms of Service.
On its website, PokerStars lists programs that are acceptable for use by its customers. They include a variety of programs such as Calculatem Pro, Holdem Genius, Holdem Manager, Omaha Indicator, Pokerbility, PokerGrapher, Poker Office, Poker Stove, PokerTracker, ThePokerDB, and Poker Wingman. There are 60 programs explicitly permitted on PokerStars. Any customer with questions about a specific piece of poker software should contact the support department of PokerStars.
Perhaps one of the premier poker software experts around is PokerXFactor instructor Chris “Fox” Wallace. He told Poker News Daily, “PokerStars has been very good about preventing cheating, but banning the SharkScope website itself, when all of that information is publicly available, will probably serve to hurt players who want to follow the rules, while rewarding those who are willing to break them.”
Wallace described how players may elect to get around the new ban on using SharkScope.com: “Anyone who has SharkScope running on a laptop sitting next to their computer will be almost impossible to catch and they will have a significant advantage over players who are being honest and sticking to the rules they agreed to. Creating a rule that can not be enforced is counterproductive.”
Full Tilt Poker does not allow the use of “large subscription databases.” However, it has not yet enforced any ban of SharkScope, which also tracks sit and go tournaments on Ultimate Bet, Party Poker, Pacific Poker, and Cake Poker, among others. Players have the option to block their own user name from appearing in SharkScope searches by filling out a form on its website. Coverage of the major poker rooms mainly began in 2006 or 2007 and over 62 million sit and gos alone were tracked on PokerStars. There have been 40 million sit and gos tracked on Full Tilt Poker and 21 million on the Ongame Network.
Right now, SharkScope is focused on sit and go tournaments. It does not yet support cash games, but intends to in the future, according to its site.
congratulations PokerStars on banning sharkscope; although I have had my account blocked on sharkscope it caused me a lot of problems while playing money sit and go tourneys because opponents would check stats and report to the table which I thought to be very unfair. Again, thanks for this action and I remain a dedicated poker player only on pokerstars because it’s the only PERFECT site for real money or even play money play! Thanks.
OP is right. It was more of a nuisance for anything, since I rarely played SNGs, but I can imagine what it meant for regular SNG players – an ongoing irritation at the chatbox
I like sharkscope….its shows just how dumb 95% of pokerstars customers are.
Its just a shame that these dummies hit far too often tho…and a terrible scam that jokerstars does not reflect true poker odds.
Poker Stars has to FEED the DONKEYS or they won’t come back!!!
EVERY tournament they have is RIGGED to CUT-THE-FIELD fast by the BIGGER STACKS sucking-out 95% of the time! Speed-up the tournaments and they speed-up the players moving to another and paying another buy-in!!!
Donkerstars,is what it is.Play live,win.Play at pokerstars and get cracked by garbage every time.They even tell you that RNG or Sharkscope was reason.JOKERSTARS<DONKE Y STARS.LOL
FTW!!!
yurp pokerstars if it wasnt rigged i would be a millionaire the amount of donks on there is stupid
I am starting to realize the way to win money in MTT’s on pokerstars is to push on the flop if you pair up against the over pair as long as you have built the chips to do it. Like someone said above if you have chips you will suck out most of the time. I really wonder about the site but i still play it. One thing I have finally realized is to stop wasting time on the turbos. If you dont ahve to push you dont ahve to worry as much about the suck out!@
I am just considering the use of shark scope and poker genius i dont play on pkr strs but on full tilt i believe its the only way to get the extra edge to make a living online i am 14roi in last 6m but with these tools can do better the donks will continue to play like donks no matter what if they want to give it away then why not just let them. the tools are there for EVERONE to access.
how about I don’t want to be tracked and traced and have my financial information available to every fool with a pc and however many dollars!!! it is an invasion of my privacy and it is harassing. if you are so good, beat a person by playing them not stalking them, which is what this unwanted and heretofore unknown tracking of people is a version of. I want to play for fun not be stalked or called names.
i think its a good idea to stop the tracking because people do just put your bussiness out their in the middle of games and if you are a loosing player they call you names. So good job pokerstars!
I AGREE WITH DEALER AND DINERO. ALSO RANKINGS DONT PROVE TO BE AN EXACT SCIENCE BECAUSE VERY GOOD PLAYERS MAY HAVE A MINUS ROI BECAUSE AT THE TIME THEY ARE RUNNING BAD AND IDIOTS MIGHT BE WINNING RIGHT NOW AND BE POSITIVE.NOTHINGS WORSE THAN HAVING SOME SO CALLED PRO KNOWING EVERYBODIES STATS AND TALKING ABOUT IT
The conspiracy theories just don’t add up. I have done quite well on PokerStars in tournaments over the years and know many others that have done the same. I also did well on PartyPoker when US players could play there. It’s not the site folks. Since when does variance have to occur on a specific date and affect the outcome of hands only for a fixed period of time?
Variance can will and does occur at it’s own convenience and can remain for quite a while giving you bad beat after bad beat making you believe that it’s “rigged” when in actuality it is simply the math catching up to itself. On the contrary, you could also run ridiculously good for an inordinate amount of time as well. Does that mean the site is rigged too?
Over the long term the better players make money. It is pretty much as simple as that. SharkScope gives players an unfair advantage and should have been removed. Everyone should applaud PokerStars for this move instead of being angry about it.
Variance is a factor but it is a well known, admitted fact that the sites do in fact “rig” for lack of a better word, games to induce action. That being said, good players win, bad players loose in the long run. Sites like Sharkscope are a GOOD indicator of a players tendicies, over the long haul, and a better indicator if there is a a large sample number. If a player has a negative 30% avg ROI over 8000 or more SNGs, that is a good indication that the player is probably not that good, same true for a positive 30% over the same sample number. If a player has only played 100 SNGs, well, that sample is not large enough to fully gage skill, but the player is a novice so that might be something to exploit. If you are so concerned about “your business” being public, go to the site and BLOCK yourself. Simple, fast, easy. Besides, it is only one aspect of your game (SNGS). It is not your finances being made public as someone said, let’s not get so dramatic. And as JR says, it is not a exact science but the information you are seeing is not a current ROI, it is an AVG ROI, so running good/bad does not dramatically effect that number. Plus the site will tell you if that person is running hot or cold and you can drill down into the numbers to see that information. These sites are a fact of life. People will use them and there is not much you can do about it, besides blocking your own stats. If you do want to gather information on players use programs like Holdem Manager or Poker Tracker 3 and it will data mine players you play with automatically and within the rules. Stop crying about these services and having people chat you up and learn to play better poker so that information becomes positive and you will no longer care.
Pokerstars does not “rig” action etc. There are a few factors that make people say that:
1.) You see a lot more hands per hour than at a live game.
2.) The people that play on pokerstars are less skilled than those you would encounter at a casino.
3.) People have less time to act and are generally looser with their money online.
The end result is players that chase which causes the occasional suck out. But because you can see a lot more hands per hour you see a lot more suck outs. The funny thing is, if your losing money on pokerstars YOUR the bad player so quit whining!
so what is banned from fulltilt, and what is recommended to use on that site???
i think that the sharkscope SHOULD be banned, i am recently out of hospital after six months. i play online because i enjoy the game, the banter, and the chance to win a few bucks. however, having recently returned i have noticed the increased insults directed at me, PARTICULARLY quoting sharkscope. i think its a disgrace that in the days of privacy some half-wit is able to access private financial information, and use it to insult you to all and sundry at the table. secondly, i agree with the player above. i think that the software is designed to favour the bad player, this encourages them to go for more outrageous suck-outs in the future. this in turn shortens the length of time the game is played, exited players are more likely to join another comp; and all this ======= MORE CASH FOR THE POKER=SITE
Anyone who says they make money consistently at Pokerstars is full of crap. I made over 6k at ILC last year playing live. But at PS no matter what, the Miracle suck out comes when all the money is in. A good Patient player at pokerstars doesnt have a chance. Time and Time again Ive had my money in good and lost to the miracle runner runner strts and and 4 to the flushes. AA against AA has lost 5 Times ON PS by the other player making a flush. Ive never won in the same manner. AA seems to hold up against an under pair maybe 20% of the time. I would love to see a Pro sign on under my Name and get their take on the way the cards fall and see if they think something isnt right. Untill then I guess ill have to hear about how a Player at PS sees more hands per hour and how their software has been indep evaluated and Blah blah blah. Its all BS. Something isnt right. Before Sharkscope decided to create the opt in deal I went out and did a search for all of the Pokerstars pros and not 1 of them was making Money. That was an eye opener.
Check out what Adam said August 29th 2009.
Is he the only one with a brain out there?
All these idiots talking about rigging and pokerstars favouring bad players it’s all nonsense.
I don’t know if any of you had noticed but as well as skill, there is also a great deal of luck involved in poker and in order to understand how well you’ve played you need to look at the bigger picture not just focus on a couple of bad beats: Face it, if you haven’t made any money at the end of the year, then you haven’t played very well.
I used to use sharkscope. It’s a great tool. I used it to get an idea of how well my opponents were doing. It was amazing. If I saw someone playing bad, and I checked their stats, they were almost always a losing player. If I saw someone playing good, their stats were almost always profitable. If you scope the table, it can give you instant info on who the sharks and fish are. It doesn’t tell you how to play your cards, you still have to make those decisions yourself. huge advantage to those using that tool.
I’m not looking to play hands with the sharks without a strong hand. I’m much more likely to call a raise from a player with a fishbowl by his name on sharkscope.
Mary Ann Roberts February 5th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
congratulations PokerStars on banning sharkscope; although I have had my account blocked on sharkscope it caused me a lot of problems while playing money sit and go tourneys because opponents would check stats and report to the table which I thought to be very unfair. Again, thanks for this action and I remain a dedicated poker player only on pokerstars because it’s the only PERFECT site for real money or even play money play! Thanks
Pokerstars blows. The only thing good about it is the graphics.
Look all you players out there,Poker Stars is not fixed,rigged or anything else.
The Poker Stars site does more than any other site out there,they are a truly fantastic site who care about their members,and i know this first hand.
Poker Is a hard game and reqires lots of work to improve,most pros will be down on money for short term only to win in the long run.
I am not going to let people say these things,as its just not fair.
So if you don,t like Poker Stars GET LOST,as your insulting the site and workforce and the pro,s and the members that think Poker Stars is excellent.
I had my head in a cloud recently,and said some silly things,to be honest i was a prat,and have to live with my stupid remarks,but Poker Stars being very good,they understand the frustrations of Poker.
My advice enjoy the game,try to improve,or join a training site while you play.Look at the factors your never to far ahead in a hand,so if your beat,then your playing right and you will win in end.
Basically cut the crap,saying the site is rigged.
I have tried PokerStars a few times over the years. Each time….after playing 10’s of thousands of hands…I would look at my monitor with my jaw agape as I once again played a hand as a huge favorite & lost.
I played $10 – $20 LHE (full ring game) & $1-$2 NLHE (6-max). Each time I tried it out….there would be the usual roller coaster of winning a bit & losing a bit going on until I got into a big hand for the limit I was playing.
I was crushed in most of the big hands as a small to huge favorite & that was the reason I could never win there….PERIOD!!
I finally gave that site up for many reasons. The #1 reason was playing hands like this: I would have KK & my opponent would have AK….there would be preflop raises….the flop would come K-4-4…my opponent would go all-in & of course I would call & watch the turn & river be running 4’s to make his Ace high the winning hand…it was just unbelievable!!!
Also – I know there are all sorts of 3rd party programs players are using….one’s that are allowed there & one’s that aren’t (PokerStars says they ban certain one’s….but the 3rd party programs say they can’t be detected).
Whatever happened to poker being played….player vs. player? Now it is player vs. another player who is a computer whiz & has all the hands I’ve ever played in his database & use formula’s to put the most significant info right next to my avatar: or bots, shills, proposition players, etc.
What’s Next? Are you going to be sitting at a “live” game & have a player sit down along with an associate who has a laptop computer or some other device to enter all the info they can get on everybody else at the table & every hand that is showed down?
The way I’ve had the most success playing online poker is to avoid the biggest sites like PokerStars & Full Tilt poker. Try out some of the smaller sites until you find one that you like. I believe that in general there are less people at these type of sites that have databases that include you in them.
I am still ahead playing online poker over all….but not near as much as I would have been if I would have avoided PokerStars like the plague.
One thing I found out regarding PokerStars speaks volumes about how they operate. The FINAL TIME I tried that site out….I E-mailed them & asked if I could change my screen name there because I didn’t want any of my opponents have having a lot of info about me that they gleaned by 3rd party software programs.
LOL – they E-mailed me back & told me that I couldn’t & it was for my own good because of security issues.
And to all the folks who say that all these sites are fair & nobody ever gets cheated. Obvioulsy we all know about “Ultimate Bet” & “Absolute Poker”…so it can & did happen…& when caught…both sites stonewalled until “Players” came up with incontrovertible evidence.
Remember these two adages: “Doing the same thing over & over again & expecting different results is one definition of insanity” and “CAVEAT EMPTOR”!!
Of Course – this is just IMHO & I know there are players on both sides of this argument & there probably always will be.
There is a lot to be said for playing good vs. bad play (tilt usually) but I recently lost with pocket A-A 5 times in a row after I’ve gotton the pot heads-up pre-flop; usually opponent has 9-9 or 10-10 and flops a set: this seems more than running bad and can make an individual wonder.
My main thought is; “how is poker programming conducted, is it an art or science, and do all the internet poker sites program the software/cards in the same programming formula.”
With the lack of government standards regulation cheaters and hackers like Russ Hamilton will continue to exist and players will continue to somewhat correctly wonder if poker programming of a site is rigged.
I too question the random cards of poker stars. I have played almost 9,000 SNGs over the years and I cant even count the amount of times i’ve been rivered. i’ve hit numerous sets plus have seen other players do the same on the flop and end up looseing to runners,rather to a 4 flushed board or a straight!! Then the amount of time i’ve seen A/K vs A/weaker kicker and the weaker kicker will hit the board. I realize this happens in poker,but on poker stars,it seams to happen far more than the odds imply. Due to where I live, i’m not able to play alot of live cards but watch it on t.v. when ever possible. I must say that I don’t see any where near the suckouts and bad beats. This is my observation anyway!
I am not a novice player but I’m new to pokerstars.
While I cannot prove it or back it up with evidence. I have a strong feeling that the games are rigged. If you play for hours on end day after day, I think you can get a ‘feeling’ about the question if you are on the good or bad side of variance. I am winning, and while I do believe it is also because Im better than my opponents, I have a strong feeling that I have been catching way more suckouts than statistics would entitle me too. Miracle suckouts happen, but I seem to get lucky with them way too often (and I play in a way that I dont HAVE to suck out a lot of the time)
In the biggest game Ive played thus far, I have been all in with K3 suited against AA and I caught a straight. not for a chop, but for the win. and then there are just countless of sets that turned into FH’s against a flush on the turn or river. I caught some bad beats as well, but I really feel like I am getting more than my share. Adams theory/explanation makes a lot of sense, and those are valid points, but I am a player who does not get it in with the worst hand most of the time but I just seem to win them more often than I should. And people usually feel like they are unlucky, but i actually feel like I am lucky, which says something I guess. Just wanted to share that.
As for sharkscope, I think programs like that and pokertracker are lame as fck, but you gotta do what you gotta do to make a living I guess. Peace.
I agree with JimmyJ,but I think you can’t use sharkscope is because the pros were being embarassed by how much money they were losing. I would look up the pros and most were losing there rearends online. I believe PS is messed up on their Software, My experience for the past 3 or 4 years is you are a pretty good player you are going to get more bad beats than normal. I have cracked pocket aces all in preflop heads up about 4 or 5 times out of 300-400 times, my pocket aces have been cracked 100-150 times out of 300-400. My heads up all in coin flip hands and I kept stats for years I won 16-17% of the times. Now I have won a liitle money on PS but if I could have won a decent % of the hands of coin flips and hands I dominated people I could have won a good amount of money. Just my opinion and I know other people personally that play also that feel the same way.
I just discovered Sharkscope and the only pro I can see making a profit is Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson, one of FullTilt’s founders. He is a true grinder, with a PhD from UCLA in Virtual Network Algorithms. Most of the TV “pros” are losing money by the truckload.
I’ve dropped my buy-ins down to token sums because I’ve realised that you can’t win online. If you play too well you get punished for scaring away the fish. The number of times I’ve been rivered by rubbish is incredible and it goes way beyond the margins of probability.
I recently spoke with a professional hacker who has worked in data security for over ten years. He assures me that the only way to win online is to cheat. There’s a foolproof way of doing it involving global routing but in the spirit of the game I’ll leave it at that.
Amazing that any poker site would even entertain allowing these data devices to be used during any poker play. Poker is about using your brain, gathered information while playing at the table. The ability to use your experience and skills Using this data is cheating no matter how you look at it. Look at steriods to baseball or electronic devices inside casino’s, its the same thing you are cheating.
Everyone complaining about pokerstars being rigged are just sore loosers.
using the heads up displays, and collecting players hand histories , should be all fine & good.they are just that”history” and have zero bearing or effect on any present hands dealt at any table. since when playing online you can’t see your opponent or have likely never played with them before it would be impossible to generally make any relevant reads or decisions on other player’s tendencies. all the poker tracking software programs do is give users a general idea on probabilities of players actions,the players using these said programs have to make their own decisions based on this collected info. It should not be a problem at all, certainly it’s not even close to cheating, asit has no bearing on the present ands dealt, none whatsoever.